“No wonder the
only message the rest of the world and many within this country get from this,
is that we aren’t serious about battling al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and that the
anti-Americanism within us is now so virulent, it prevents us from seeing and
doing things that are otherwise in our own interests.”

Dr. Shakil Afridi, a surgeon who helped the CIA identify Osama bin Laden: His conviction on treason charges Wednesday, and his sentence of 33 years behind bars, is sending yet another shock wave through U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Osama bin Laden lived safely and peacefully in this country
for many years. And yet so far, the only person to have been punished for that is
the man who helped track him down. Beyond that, no action has been taken
against anyone in Pakistan’s intelligence or law-enforcement apparatus, either
on account of how American helicopters intruded so deeply inside Pakistani
territory or how bin Laden managed to live in Pakistan for so many years - apparently
undetected.

Dr. ShakilAfridi,
who at the behest of the United States, ran a vaccination program to collect
DNA samples of bin Laden’s family, was sentenced to 33 years in prison by a
tribal court under the Frontier Crimes
Regulations (FCR). Why Dr. Afridi
was tried and sentenced in Khyber Agency when the crime took place in
Abbottabad, which is in a settled area and is therefore under the jurisdiction
of the Peshawar High Court, remains to be answered. Notwithstanding an unnamed
government official who is telling news wires services that Afridi
has the right of appeal, by trying him under the FCR,
Article 247 of the Constitution effectively bars the high court or the Supreme
Court from jurisdiction. And to make the entire “trial” even more controversial,
the doctor had no legal representation, which is perhaps the norm under the FCR.

Posted by Worldmeets.US

It is no wonder then, that this verdict is being so widely questioned.
For starters, there is the argument – which has some justification - that
helping to locate the world’s most wanted man should not warrant 33 years in prison,
even if it meant helping a foreign government in the process. Of course, that
is not to say that Dr. Afridi obeyed the law of the
land - he did not. But did he deserve such a stiff prison term?

Furthermore, two of the three charges he was convicted of:
“waging war against Pakistan”; and “concealing a plan to wage war against
Pakistan,” should be seen in the context of the eventual outcome, which was
that the country was rid of perhaps the world’s most dangerous terrorist - a
man whose organization and its affiliates have the blood of thousands of
Pakistanis on their hands. Moreover, the previous government of General PervezMusharraf handed dozens of
al-Qaeda leaders to the U.S. - and not a single case involving the violation of
sovereignty or “waging war against Pakistan” was ever filed against anyone.

The sorry fact is that Dr. Afridi’s
treatment coveys a lot about our priorities - both to us and the outside world.
We remain fixated on America’s violation of our sovereignty on May 2, but
choose to ignore the fact that militants have used our territory unencumbered for
years.

This has also been the great failing of the commission
formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the May 2 raid. Instead of focusing on how bin Laden was able to live freely
in Abbottabad and determining if he did so with the support of people in the
government or military, the commission, too, has been preoccupied with the question
of sovereignty.

There is another aspect to this as well. In recent months,
ordinary Pakistanis have seen how murderers, those who spew sectarian hate and
people who incite others to kill and cause mayhem have been let off by the
courts on account of a “lack of evidence.”And this hasn’t applied only to those
who kill in the name of religion. Even in places like Karachi, where dozens of contract
killers have held the city practically hostage, hundreds have been murdered. And
yet we haven’t seen a single one of these criminals convicted and handed a
lengthy prison sentence.

Juxtapose this with the case of Dr, ShakilAfridi, who helped capture and remove bin Laden from
our midst, and who was given a swift “trial” with no lawyer, and was handed a
prison term of over 30 years! No wonder the only message the rest of the world
and many within this country get from this, is that we aren’t serious about battling
al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and that the anti-Americanism within us is now so
virulent, it prevents us from seeing and doing things that are otherwise in our
own interests.